Like so many others I started out in the business making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow weirdoes, outcasts and addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets – or better yet professionally printed packages which put dreamers’ money where their mouths are – still gets me going in ways which imperil my tired old heart…
So here’s a long-overdue peek at a brilliant publishing project bringing a wealth of independent graphic craft to your attention…
DiRTY ROTTEN Comics #8
By various, Edited by Gary Clap & Kirk Campbell (Throwaway Press)
No ISBN
Graphic narrative and cartooning covers a vast range of genres, formats, disciplines and tastes. Moreover, to my jaded old eyes, these days all the very best and most imaginative work seems to come from outside the pool of professional creators and publishers from what used to be called the “Small Press†…
At the moment in Britain we’re blessed with a fresh, vital and engaging wave of strip-makers and DiRTY ROTTEN Comics is periodically gathering up a wide sampling of the most impressive work and packaging it in sleek, professional-looking black-&-white books I would have killed to be printed in back in the so-cool, tech-deprived Seventies…
The brainchild of – and edited by – Gary Clap and Kirk Campbell, this splendidly broad church of graphic recollection, exploration, extrapolation and fancification is a superb snapshot of the creative vitality, welcome diversity and uncompromising inclusivity of the modern stripzine scene, and sheer heaven for an avowed sucker for all forms of black and white art such as we. I gravely mourn its passing in both film and comics media…
This particular compendium – the Autumn 2016 edition – opens with whimsical rumination in ‘Lady Masque’ by David Robertson and segues into nostalgic reflection with Henry Miller’s charming ‘Real Roman Coins’ before sliding towards comedic anarchy in ‘Journey into Stupid: Summer’ from Claude T. C. & Kyle Gerdes…
Andrew Warwick then heads into spooky M. R. James territory with ‘Insert 20 Pence’ whilst Joanna Harker Shaw waxes poetic with ‘Extract from ‘The Lesson” after which ‘Wallace’ experiences a technical itch in a comedy short from Kevin Loftus.
Maria Stoian explores domestic isolation in ‘Nighttime Routine’ whilst a child’s salient question gets a typically brusque adult answer in ‘Seabass’ by Stanley Miller.
Petitecreme’s manga-styled discursive debate on mourning in ‘It’ll Be OK’ quickly gives way to frustrating and surreal terror courtesy of Benjamin Leon’s ‘Knots’ and trenchant black humour in ‘What A Catch’ from James Gifford.
Social overload leads to a welcome moment of calm in ‘Dandelion’ by Francis M. whilst Faye Spencer displays another method of maintaining equilibrium in ‘Bile’ even as Lukasz Kowalczuk shows the world’s next owners at their unsavoury worst in ‘Hollow Earth’.
Benjamin A.E. Filby introduces us to a very human monster in ‘SANGUISUGE’ whilst Scott Wrigg nervously anticipates ‘Those Days’ and bereavement concerns inspire Rozi Hathaway’s bleak and languid ‘Sørgedag’.
Mock heroics and a search for love (or at least acceptance) concern diminutive ‘Sir Tramsalot’ in Ben Hutching’s mirthful, moving vignette, whilst Jey Levang examines the downside of immortality in ‘Amaranthine’ and Tom Mortimer considers the ramifications and necessity of population control in ‘#Neutered’.
A delicious moment of domestic veracity in depicted in ‘Maladroit’ by Josh Hicks after which Elias Bevan comments on the small press creative mill with ‘Grow Them…’ before this aggregate walk on the personal side concludes in epic style with James Wragg’s poignant mystic ‘Remembrance’…
Concise, expressive, intimate and evocative, this is a compendium with something for everybody who loves the comics medium and is well worth your time, money and impassioned support.
All content © 2016 by their respective creators.
For more information and sales details check out THROWAWAYPRESS.COM